Taiwan's Government Has Decided to Increase Electricity Prices

Taiwan's government has decided to increase electricity prices, with industries expressing concerns over the impact to their production costs. Chairman of LED packaging firm Everlight, Robert Yeh, said China's government has been distributing subsidies to LED firms in recent years, which is putting Taiwan's firms at a risk. He also said increasing electricity prices will put Taiwan at a disadvantage and will directly impact the cost of business operations. In addition, this will reduce corporations' willingness to invest and might cause enterprises to relocate abroad, added Yeh LED upstream industries are energy-intensive industries and electricity accounts for about 8% their operating costs, Yeh stated. Taiwan enterprises adopt technical and high value-added strategies, so if the demand for electricity is relatively high, profits will be decreased as well, Yeh pointed out. Yeh further said that one of the attractive points for investing in Taiwan are the low electricity costs, a point that the government needs to consider more. Yeh also mentioned that raising electricity prices will only help Taipower, Taiwan's state-run power company, but not solve the issue of energy consumption in Taiwan. Yeh further stated that Taiwan could decrease the amount of energy it generates by 25% if LED lights were used. He also said that nuclear power plants generate 20% of the total amount of electricity produced, making it possible for the plants to be obsolete in the future. He also said that Taiwan could save NT$125 billion (US$4.2 billion) if Taiwan adopted LEDs as the standard for lighting, which is the equivalent of giving each of its citizens approximately NT$5,000 that in turn could be used to purchase 10 60-watt LED bulbs. Source: www.digitimes.com